


Bloodstains in Blue Water

by Kestrel_sama



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blatant Misuse of Mythology, Blood, Choking, Drowning, Implied Murder, M/M, Monsterfucking, Sorta character death, hunter!jesse, look I write happy endings, monster!hanzo, myth//legend, this has a happy ending, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 01:03:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20381119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel_sama/pseuds/Kestrel_sama
Summary: A hunter seeks out a monster. He finds one, but it's not entirely what he expected.





	Bloodstains in Blue Water

**Author's Note:**

> I am SO EXCITED to get to finally share this fic with the rest of the world who didn't order the Myth//Legend zine (which was bomb, y'all missed out). Some incredible authors and fucking phenomenal artists came together to create one of the best zines I've ever read (much less been a part of), and it was a huge pleasure to be amongst them. 
> 
> I've been quiet lately because I've been working on this and two other zines in the background, so I hope the wait was worth it! Huge shoutout to my artists Wanlingnic and Nicku who created some gorgeous artwork for this story. Check out their twitters @wanlingnic and @nickutried.

“Eighteen deaths in the last twelve months-- and those are just the ones we have data on. God knows how many locals and refugees have disappeared into this region that we haven’t heard about.” Jesse’s fingers traced the lines of the map Reyes had slapped down in front of him. Kyiv, Ukraine, and the surrounding countryside, was encircled in bright red marker. 

“One of the missing was a retired British SAS Captain. On top of that particular shit-show, among the missing and presumed dead, are three college-aged vloggers from San Diego headed to Chernobyl, a Parisian journalist, and seven Japanese tourists. The United Security Council is all over my ass, and with what’s going on in Crimea, the Russians aren’t doing jack shit to help, so it’s just us.” Reyes bitched, tossing a folder with the British NSC logo down on top of the map. 

“We got any leads? Kyiv ain’t small, exactly.” Jesse muttered, already dreading the bustle of a busy city with an even busier nightlife. Those weren’t really his forté, so to speak.

“Just one, but it’s pretty solid.” Reyes replied, picking up his datapad. “That British SAS Captain? He was there vacationing with his grandson. The kid was picked up by Ukrainian police on the outskirts of Kiev.” 

Reyes pulled up a file and set it down as the holovid sprung up, displaying a child of no more than six sitting in an interrogation room across from an interpreter and two officers. Someone had given him a stuffed rabbit which was currently being strangled by the boy, and an ignored mug of something steaming sat on the table. 

_“Tell us what you saw, Charlie.”_ The interpreter urged gently after conversing briefly with the police.

_“The pretty man took grandad.” _The kid fidgeted in his seat, the stuffed bunny squeezed a bit tighter in his little arms. Jesse’s heart ached. 

_“Where did he take him? Do you remember where you were?” _

_“... into the water.” _

The video cut off, and Jesse leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his scruff with one hand. “You got coordinates on where the kid was picked up? Them little legs of his, we can’t be looking at too big an area, right?” 

Reyes nodded, pulling up a more detailed map on his datapad and rotating the image so Jesse could see the highlighted areas. “We’ve narrowed our search down to a fifteen mile radius from the pick-up point. There’s waterways all over the damn place though-- rivers, lakes in the countryside, canals in and out of the city… it’s not gonna be an easy search.” 

Chewing on his lower lip, Jesse nodded. It never was.

***

The flight to Kiev was almost unbearably long by Jesse’s standards. The pre-flight cocktails were sub-par, and the leg room left much to be desired. Still, there was plenty to keep him occupied in the nearly twenty hours that he tried to not knock knees with his seatmate.

Across the aisle and two rows up there was a quiet yet cheerful Chinese woman chattering about going to visit her Russian girlfriend and the dangers of global warming. She’d made Jesse’s right eye twitch somethin’ fierce though, until he blinked and looked at her with his Sight. Underneath the guise of humanity she was something else. Still short and Chinese, but she glimmered with a light only minor Gods and Goddesses were known for. A soft vapor wafted up off of her, sparkling with ice crystals and magic. 

The whole thing made Jesse snort a bit to be perfectly honest. Even a Goddess apparently needed to catch a flight now and again. On one of his trips to the bathroom he saw a pair of vampires, giving off a dull red aura as they chatted quietly. The obliviousness of the other passengers spoke for how they’d perfected the glamour to make themselves appear entirely ordinary and forgettable. 

That Sight was what had gotten Jesse into Blackwatch in the first place-- he could see supernatural beings for what they really were, and it had saved nearly as many lives as it’d helped him take. Nearly. The vampires weren’t harming anyone though, and the Goddess wasn’t one he had to watch out for, so beyond visually assessing them and cataloguing their presence on his flight, he could sit back and enjoy a questionably amusing mid-flight movie, and an even more questionable mid-flight meal. 

The second half of his flight was spent cross-referencing any local myths and legends that would explain the “pretty man” who preyed on tourists of varying ages and genders. Anyone between the ages of eighteen and sixty was apparently not off the menu, and none of the victims had any similarities in height or build or hair color or even base attractiveness. 

_The pretty man. _

That’s what the kid had said. Problem with that was that most Liln and Incubi had a pretty specific M,O., which didn’t include making off with the bodies of their victims entirely. The Fae tended to take children rather than adults, and most of the maneaters weren’t what a prepubescent kid would call “pretty” by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, the only region-appropriate male water-dweller that he could think of was a Vodianyk, but the kid had said “pretty man” not “waterlogged geezer with a beard that’d put a lumberjack to shame.”

It was a damned mystery, that was for sure.

***

Two weeks into his search, Jesse was still no closer to finding his mystery monster. He’d traipsed through canals and sewer systems, sloshed through a muddy swamp filled with nothing more dangerous than mudkips and a veritable horde of mosquitoes, and stumbled into more ditches than he cared to admit to. 

Plucking a leech off his arm and tossing it back into the water, Jesse marked off another square on the grid he’d made to better search the area. It was more black X’s than empty boxes though, and all that was left was the uppermost section of the grid that ventured into the countryside and woodlands outside of Kiev. 

With a sigh, Jesse capped his marker, stuffed his map away, and hiked his pack a bit higher up on his shoulders as he set off towards the Desna river.

It was late evening, with the sun setting in the distance before Jesse got his first hint of something unusual. A scrap of yellow silk dangled from the lowest branch of a larch tree, the threads trapped in the tree’s sticky sap and tangled in the needles. If it were cotton or linen, he probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but silk like that shone in the dimming light, and the high-quality fabric had no business being this far out in the woods. 

Double-checking his map, it quickly became apparent that this particular section of the river wasn’t too far off from one of the lesser-known, but still utilized, self-guided hiking trails. A frisson of anticipation tingled its way up the back of his neck at the realization that this might finally lead to some answers. 

Further down the bank, another scrap of yellow silk fluttered gently in the faint breeze, this one about the length of his forearm. Rather than snagged as the last scrap had been, it had been tied to an oak branch. Looking closer, Jesse could see the sheen of faint scallops patterned into the fabric. Carefully untying it, Jesse rolled up the scrap of fabric and tucked it into his pocket. If this was another dead end, no big deal, but he’d hate himself forever if he left a clue behind. 

Just past that tree, the forest thinned and the river curved, exposing a clearing of lush grass and an even larger oak, gnarled and ancient bent in a graceful arch over the riverbend, limbs branching out over the water. The tree itself only had his attention for a brief second, however, because lounging in the fork of two branches was the most beautiful man Jesse had ever seen. 

He was Japanese in ethnicity, and so perfectly sculpted that he could have been the brainchild of an artist. The man’s cheekbones and jawline were sharp enough to cut diamond; he had a Roman nose, dark facial hair immaculately trimmed and groomed, and his body…

Well, his body was everything Jesse had fantasized about when he was a horny teenager jacking off in his room. Broad, muscular shoulders, trim waist, and hips with a prominent V at his iliac furrow. His skin was so pale it was nearly translucent in the silvery light of the rising moon, and black, black hair hung wetly over one shoulder, the other shoulder covered by a half-draped robe of sorts. 

He was humming quietly, a haunting sort of noise that tugged at Jesse from somewhere just below his navel and prompted him to step forward out of the treeline. He wished he hadn’t, as the moment he stepped out the humming stopped as the man looked up at him with a soft gasp. 

“Oh… you startled me. I did not expect anyone else to be in these parts of the woods this late.” 

Even his voice was rich, rumbling, with a hint of a growl that had Jesse swallowing on a dry throat. His right eye twitched and he blinked firmly, willing it to stop so he could just take a second and… and look. Ain’t no man in the world had the right to look that damn good half-dressed and dripping wet. He took another step forward, brain producing little more than static at this point. 

“My bad, sugar. Didn’t mean ta sneak up on ya like that,” Jesse crooned, not wanting to startle this vision away. “I’m Jesse, by the way.” His eye twitched again, making him blink again. In that second the man had slid out of the tree and to the ground, fluid as water, silken robe billowing around his legs as he approached Jesse.

“No harm done, Jesse,” the man purred, the way he lingered over his name making McCree’s cock start to chub up in attention. “Perhaps you’d care to join me for a swim? It’s such a beautiful evening, and the water here is perfect.” He was within touching distance, and a strong, delicately-boned hand lifted to tease at the buttons of Jesse’s flannel. Jesse’s gut quivered, and before he knew what he was doing his pack had slid off his shoulders to fall to the ground and he was stumbling after the man, fumbling at the buttons on his shirt. 

“Swim sounds mighty fine. Been a long hike and I could stand to take a break.” Why had he been hiking anyways, when he could have been here instead? The man chuckled, a rich, low noise that rang right to Jesse’s bones. 

With the shrug of a muscular shoulder, the upper part of his robe fell to his hips, baring the long, lean line of his back and the dip and swell of muscles that were just begging to be bitten and kissed. Jesse nearly let out a whimper as the belt was unknotted and the silk fell away completely, baring the most perfect, muscular, rounded ass he could have prayed for. 

As the man waded into the water up to his --frankly dainty-- ankles, Jesse’s skull lit up in agony, a searing pain behind his right eye breaking through any lust that was driving him forward. Finally, he looked at him properly, with his Sight, and his heart dropped unpleasantly into his stomach. 

Just like that the glamour was gone, and the compulsion to follow had dissipated. In spite of that, beneath the illusion the man was still devastatingly handsome, though his skin held the pallor of death, lips tinted blue and eyes only a milky white devoid of iris or pupil. Hints of blue-green scales speckled his shoulder and arms, and whitish fins poked through the black hair where his ears had been. 

As he waded into the water on legs that were now misshapen and clawed, that beautifully shaped ass and those long legs shifted into a thick, scaly tail with thick, dual ridges reminiscent of an alligator’s tail. 

“Jesse?”

The man turned to look at him questioningly, one hand held out imploringly, palm up. Jesse looked at the blood-stained talons and back up at the man. Damn everything, even cursed as he was, he was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Oh sugar,” Jesse sighed, regret thickening his throat. 

The man’s face fell into a mien of concern, though it gave Jesse a disorienting double-image. One of the gorgeous human nibbling worryingly at his lower lip, and the other of the monster, baring sharp teeth in his frustration.

“Jesse, are you ok? Don’t you want to come swimming?”

He sounded so forlorn, so earnest… it made Jesse’s chest tighten unpleasantly. “I, uh… just realized I ain’t gotten your name yet, sugar. Mighty rude of me.” 

The creature seemed surprised for a long moment, and that was almost as bad as the tightening around his eyes and the way his lips parted on words that wouldn’t come. Bad enough that he didn’t seem to remember, but for all his victims, no one had even bothered to ask? It sat wrong in Jesse’s gut.

“Does it matter?” the creature asked finally, voice barely above a murmur. 

Jesse’s breath left him in a soft sigh. “Course it matters. You don’t even remember what it is, do ya?” The creature’s eyes narrowed at him, a frown creasing his brow as an indignant look flashed through milky-white eyes. Even pissed and haughty, he was still gorgeous.

“You overstep your bounds!” he hissed, tail lashing ominously in the water. Jesse shrugged, offering a half-grin at the accusation.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last time, pumpkin.” 

The creature hissed in frustration, while the glamour of the man he pretended to be looked about ready to burst into tears. Both made Jesse’s eye cross with an unfair amount of emotion that he was hard pressed to put a name to. 

Up to his abs in the water, the monster hesitated, fingertips dancing over the surface as he eyed his prey, rage replaced with canny allure in the span of a heartbeat. “Isn’t it enough that I want you? That I want to taste you on my lips and feel you deep inside me?” he purred seductively. Even knowing that he meant as a meal in his belly, and not the traditional way two men enjoy each other, Jesse’s dick gave an interested twitch beneath his jeans. Didn’t help that the creature had sex-eyes down pat, and a sultry pout that would weaken the hardest of mortals.

“I wish it could be, sugar,” Jesse lamented, mindful to keep well out of reach from the water’s edge. His palm found its way to the hilt of his pistol, fingers twitching over the safety and flicking it off. No matter what he thought, this was a man-eating monster who’d murdered dozens of innocents. He had to be put down… right?

“You remember anything? How you got here? Why you’re eatin’ folks?” Jesse pressed. Killing him was the easy way to end this mosquito-plagued mission, but something prevented him from pointing the barrel straight at the critter’s forehead and ending it there and then. Something in the way his eyes tightened at the corners in both his human form and his true form. 

There was an agony there that he knew all too well. 

Water roiled as the creature snapped his tail against the surface, slapping through the water in irritation. The water around his chest vibrated in time with the low, annoyed rumble so deep it was almost subaudible. The spirit slowly moved closer back towards the riverbank, giving Jesse a suspicious glare. 

“I never said anything about… eating you, cowboy,” he growled. Jesse shrugged, picking up his dropped pack and found himself a log that wasn’t too rotted to plop down onto. 

“Didn’t hafta, sugar. I know you ain’t just some handsome fella lookin for a good time.” He dug out a cigar and clamped it between his teeth as he lit it, the tip glowing red with each puff. "You wanna drop that glamour anytime soon, by the by? It's givin' me quite the headache." 

The creature's look of suspicion shifted to something closer to surprise and wariness. "You… how do you know I am not as I appear?" 

Blowing a mouthful of smoke into the sky, Jesse removed the cigar from his lips and held it upright, the glowing ember glinting in front of his right eye. "Well, it weren't just the disappearances happenin' around here, sweetpea. I got a little gift for seeing through illusions and the like. I got the Sight like my momma, and it's helped a treat. Takes a lotta the guesswork outta my job, y'know?" 

The creature hummed, bobbing in the water as he swam against the slow current. "Your job… is to kill me, then?” He scoffed dismissively. “You will be sorely disappointed, as I've already done the job for you." He stopped talking abruptly, eyes going a touch glazed as the illusion dropped completely. "I did kill myself, didn't I?" he murmured, voice barely carrying over the water to Jesse's ears.

Jesse reached into his pack, pulling out his tablet and powering the device on. Suicide was a hell of a way to go, but it helped narrow down the type of creature he was dealing with even further, and he just needed a confirmation from his research. As he tapped away at the tablet, the monster began to chuckle, a rumbling noise that bubbled up from his chest and grew into something a touch hysterical and mostly self-deprecating.

"Even that, I failed! I wish you better luck at the task, hunter." 

Jesse grunted, chewing on the end of his cigar and scrolling through his data. "I might be able to help you out there, darlin," he drawled, looking up at the creature he'd finally identified with a sad smile. 

Water-dwelling, unfathomably gorgeous, desperately sad with a penchant for drowning and eating his victims? With the addition of suicide, there was only one monster that fit the bill, and for it to be male… well, that was just downright strange.

He was a Rusalka.

Research on them was scant, but there was enough that Jesse had a few half-translated scraps about methods used to successfully release the tormented spirit from their earthly shackles that didn't necessarily involve completely destroying the soul in question. It would just take more research and time that Jesse wasn't entirely sure he had. 

The rusalka snorted derisively, approaching the riverbank and resting his forearms in the mud as he watched Jesse. "I doubt you are a match for me, hunter… if I could not even kill myself, why would you succeed where I have failed?" 

Puffing out a mouthful of smoke, Jesse pulled open a new window on his tablet and started a search on the first recorded disappearances in the area, cross-referencing that data with any men of Asian ethnicity. "I dunno, sweetness, guess I'm just a stubborn son of a bitch," he mumbled around his cigar. After a few moments of processing, only two results came back: Genji and Hanzo Shimada. 

Jesse blanched, setting down the tablet on the log next to him and resting elbows on his knees, the cigar smoldering forgotten between his lips as his stomach swooped. The only problem with all this was that… Jesse knew what happened to Genji Shimada… he was only half-human anymore, and never talked about how he got that way in the first place, but he sure as shit weren’t dead. Which meant that this was…

“Hanzo Shimada.” 

The rusalka --Hanzo-- stiffened abruptly, every line of his body taut with tension. “... What did you say?” he rasped, quiet and very, very still. The moonlight glinted off the water, giving his pale gaze a silvery-blue glow that only seemed to intensify as the seconds passed. 

“That was your name, wasn’t it? Hanzo?” 

Hanzo looked thoroughly discomfited, silently retreating into the water until he was submerged up to his nose. He stared at Jesse for a few moments longer before slipping under the surface with the barest of ripples. Jesse sighed and unfastened his bedroll from his pack, settling in to wait for Hanzo to come back. 

He _had_ to come back.

***

Hanzo did eventually return, though Jesse would’ve preferred to not wake up to clawed hands on his throat and a heavy weight pinning down his hips. As quickly as he’d woken and registered the wrongness of this situation, his revolver was cocked and digging into the soft flesh just beneath Hanzo’s jaw. 

They stared at each other for a long moment, at an impasse for half a dozen heartbeats before Hanzo finally spoke, the tips of his talons just pricking the skin of Jesse’s throat, but no tighter. 

“How do you know such things?” he rasped finally, reflected moonlight off the water showing how drawn and tight his features had become. “How could you possibly know anything about me? About what I’ve done?”

Taking one of the biggest risks of his professional life, Jesse uncocked his gun and set it down beside him. “I don’t know everything, Hanzo, but I can show you how I knew who you were. Lemme grab my tablet?” 

It was impossible to read those glimmering blue-white eyes with no pupil or iris to use as markers of intent, but the tension around Hanzo’s lips eased a fraction before he nodded, rewarding Jesse’s trust by loosening his grip enough to make their situation more reminiscent of a lover’s pose than of two men on the verge of killing one another. 

Digging one-handed into his pack, Jesse pulled out the tablet and flipped through his history until he found the article about Hanzo and Genji’s disappearance. 

It was from a Japanese newspaper, so Jesse turned off the translate function and handed it up to the spirit sitting atop him. “A year and a half ago you and your brother got into a very public fight. After that, both of you disappeared, and the last place to stamp your passport was at the Ukrainian border,” Jesse explained as Hanzo scanned the article, a fine tremor running through his frame that Jesse could only feel due to their proximity. Clawed fingertips traced over the screen, an expression of agony written on Hanzo’s handsome features. 

“I… killed him…” he choked out, looking around as though with new eyes. “I killed my brother and then I came here… to die… a nobody. Nameless and dishonored.” He shuddered and Jesse’s hands found their way to Hanzo’s hips, thumbs rubbing into his sides in what he hoped was a soothing manner. 

“You got it all wrong sugar,” Jesse crooned, urging Hanzo to look at him. “Genji… he didn’t die. He ain’t wholly human anymore, but he ain’t dead. He’s alive Hanzo… I can take you to him.” 

Stricken, Hanzo dropped the tablet to Jesse’s side. There was a flash of longing in his face, deep and aching, before that vulnerable, wounded look closed off, and the Rusalka was back to displaying a visage as immovable and stoic as a stone pillar. “No. I am nothing more than a monster now. If this is my punishment for my crimes, then I shall endure this half-life. Let my brother think me dead and gone… it is for the best.” 

Squeezing Hanzo’s hips, Jesse urged him to meet his gaze once more. “It don’t gotta be like that, sugar. What kind of life is this, eating folks who ain’t done a damned thing wrong other than fall for how gorgeous you are? Redemption don’t mean spending eternity hurtin’ and forgetting who you were.” 

Hanzo stilled, his expression warring between angst and stoicism. “You speak as if you understand my pain… but you cannot possibly comprehend the unending… hunger that drives me. The way I feel even a little bit alive when there is the taste of life on my tongue and warmth in my belly…” With his teeth bared like that, Jesse couldn’t help but shiver a bit. It was all too easy to envision Hanzo with fresh blood dripping down his jaw and a look of utter bliss on his face. 

Of course his cock decided that that was the moment to poke Hanzo in the ass, right under the base of his crocodilian tail. 

White eyes narrowed in his direction, a long moment of silence spreading thick and sticky between them. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Hanzo asked archly after the awkward silence. Jesse grimaced at his body’s poor timing.

“Can’t blame a man for noticin’ how damn gorgeous you are, pumpkin.”

Sharp brows furrowed as Hanzo glared down at him quizzically. “I have dropped the glamour, there is no need to pretend I appear as I did while I lived. Your attraction is misguided.” 

Shrugging just a tad helplessly, Jesse graced Hanzo with a crooked grin. “Don’t need a glamour for me to think that yer the prettiest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Tail, scales, and all.” The grin softened then as Jesse gazed up at the tormented soul who sat atop him, far more fond than he really had any right to be. “Let me help you, sweetness. You don’t gotta spend your afterlife miserable and hungry and eatin’ folks. Could you try to trust me enough to help you find peace?”

The suggestion of needing help seemed to make Hanzo bristle for a moment before indignance melted into exhausted defeat. “I do not know how,” he confessed, the words barely more than a whisper. 

Jesse let his hands stroke down along the tops of Hanzo’s thighs, fingertips pressing in reverently. “That’s okay, darlin. Trust takes some time.” 

Hanzo hummed, lyrical and low. “I fear time is not on your side, hunter,” he said quietly, gaze flicking off to one side before falling back to rest on Jesse’s features. “However perhaps… there is a way to expedite such things. Trust must go both ways, and I cannot trust you if you do not trust me in return.” 

“I’m listenin’,” Jesse urged, the pads of his fingers running gentle and slick over smooth scales. 

“Come into the water with me,” Hanzo raised one clawed fingertip to Jesse’s lips, silencing him before he could get more than a shocked grunt out. “I will not harm you, on that you have my word. If you join me in the river, I will return your trust with my own. This is how it must be done.” 

Jesse was quiet for a long moment, weighing the potential that this might be a trick, that he’d still wind up dead at the bottom of the river, but…

“I will give you time to think on it,” Hanzo said, interpreting his silence as wariness. Jesse couldn’t fault him for it neither, feeling a twinge of loss just a hair too keenly as Hanzo rose off him and made his way down to the riverbank. Moonlight glittered off his scales in blues and silvers, and for a second Jesse fancied that Hanzo hesitated at the water’s edge before slipping into the river with the quiet grace of the predator that he’d become. 

Exhaling deeply, Jesse let his head fall back onto his blankets heavily before reaching for his fallen datapad and sending a quick message to Commander Reyes via the satellite relay. Nothing serious, just the coordinates and a quick message that he was on the trail of the Rusalka, and maybe send in a team if he didn't check back in in a week. 

Hopefully all of this would be sorted long before his self-imposed week was up. 

***

The next evening at dusk, Jesse stripped down to his skin and began to wade into the muddy river. A ripple in the water caught his eye, the dual caudal ridges of Hanzo’s tail breaking the surface before submerging once more. Atavistic fear screeched in Jesse’s hindbrain, even as he waded in, carefully navigating the uneven riverbed. 

“Alright, sweetpea, I’m trustin’ you to not eat me, okay?” Jesse called out over the water, proud of the fact that his voice didn’t waver much. The chilled water made his nipples pebble, and Jesse started to wonder if this hadn’t been him thinking with his dick after all. Submerged up to his collarbone, Jesse let his toes dig into the mud and stones beneath his feet, and waited for Hanzo to arrive. 

Something slithered past his leg, urging an unmanly whimper from his throat while his balls tried to crawl up inside his body for safety. 

Without warning, Jesse found himself yanked underwater, having barely enough time to gasp for a half-breath of air before water closed over his head and the light of the surface started to fade as he was dragged into the depths towards the middle of the river. Against his instincts, he didn’t struggle or kick, conserving the oxygen in his bloodstream and lungs until he could find a way out of this predicament. His lungs burned, and the taloned hand around his ankle was ice-cold. 

All he could feel was a profound sense of disappointment and sadness. 

Then, before his lungs started to scream for air, something cool and slick twined around his body, chilly hands cupping his neck and lips descending on his, blowing fresh air into his lungs. Jesse’s eyes flew open, and the blue gleam from Hanzo was enough to light up their small pocket of darkness.

When they parted, Jesse directed a put-upon scowl at Hanzo, trying not to fall into the trap of that mischievous grin highlighted by sharp teeth. Now that he wasn’t going to be drowned-- just yet, anyways-- Jesse let his arms circle Hanzo’s waist, legs tangling and palm skimming along the bony ridges that traveled down his back. 

Hanzo’s skin was slick and smooth in a way that was meant to make it easier for Rusalka to drown their prey, but Jesse found wholly enthralling for an entirely different reason. Hanzo rumbled a pleased noise against him, the water vibrating around them as he caught Jesse’s mouth once more to feed him another breath of air. This time a long tongue slipped between his lips, teasing along his teeth and soft palate curiously. 

Jesse’s hands stroked up Hanzo’s spine, fingers dipping into the floating black mass of his hair and tangling in the long strands. This felt strangely right, the two of them hidden away from the rest of the world, lit in the blue glow that shimmered off Hanzo’s body. They writhed together, Jesse’s cock firming against Hanzo’s slick abdomen as the Rusalka kept them underwater with the occasional lazy sway of his powerful tail. 

Time became meaningless as they drifted in the currents, locked in an embrace where hands roamed and lips met for more than just the exchange of oxygen filtered through Hanzo’s gills. Their rutting, slow and lazy as it might have been, still had an effect on Jesse, his head growing dizzy as his dick ground against the slickness of Hanzo’s belly. 

After what felt like a timeless eternity, Hanzo brought them both to the surface, floating on his back while Jesse rested on his front, breathing heavily. “You trusted me,” Hanzo murmured, catching Jesse’s chin in one hand and tipping it upward to look at him. Jesse nodded, gaze a bit hazy as he ground himself against Hanzo’s belly. 

“You were afraid,” Hanzo observed, claws prickling tenderly down Jesse’s spine.

“Be a fool not to,” Jesse confessed, nuzzling at Hanzo’s jaw. 

Hands groped at Jesse’s ass, spreading the cheeks and squeezing appreciatively. “Trust me once more?” Hanzo breathed into Jesse’s sodden hair, voice thick with a want that had been barely kept on leash since they began this dance. 

“Yes.” 

The word had barely escaped Jesse’s lips before Hanzo was nudging a slick knuckle against Jesse’s hole, startling a gasp out of the hunter. Jesse found himself mighty grateful that Hanzo was using a knuckle and not his taloned fingertips, but he’d need a bit more work than that to open up for… for…

Glancing behind him, Jesse gave a shuddering breath at the sight of the cock that had been grinding against his backside for a while now. He’d been too caught up in everything else to look, but now… oh lord, that frisson of fear was back, tangled up with so much lust he thought he might lose it before they hit the main event. 

It was long. Obscenely long, with an oddly bulbous head and thick fist-sized testicles resting at the base where it met Hanzo’s body. Jesse swallowed around a lump in his throat and reached behind himself to gently stroke fingertips over the length. It was slick, firm, with just the right amount of yield that it would feel so good going in, and nearly invisible nubs on the underside that promised the right kind of overstimulation. 

“Holy hell, you’re gorgeous,” he moaned, fingers encircling the base and stroking gently. Hanzo rumbled beneath him, the water rippling and shivering around them. Hanzo growled at his touch, knuckle pushing insistently at the furl of Jesse’s hole.

Giving the creature a hand, Jesse reached behind and gently urged Hanzo’s knuckles out of the way so he could slip his own fingers inside, two to start, and heaved a breath at the swift intrusion. His impatience was getting the better of him, and the backs of his knuckles kept brushing Hanzo’s cock, spurring him to push in a third much faster than he’d honestly intended. 

Crooning, Hanzo rutted his cockhead against Jesse’s backside as the human worked himself open, his prick oozing a mucous-laden slick that would assist in their coupling. Finally, Jesse grasped his shaft, angling the bulbous head towards his stretched opening, and squirming slightly as he guided Hanzo to breach him. His hole resisted for half a breath before the slick head squeezed through the tight ring, both of them breathing a groan simultaneously. 

Clinging to Hanzo’s taut frame, Jesse eased himself down with short, slow motions that opened him up deeper than his fingers had been able to reach. Hanzo shuddered beneath him, abs drawn taut and teeth bared in a pleasured grimace. Eventually, Hanzo bottomed out inside him, both of them shuddering and panting softly, Jesse acclimating to the size of him, and Hanzo struggling to hold still. 

With Hanzo floating and Jesse astride him, leverage to ride his river monster became tricky. More energetic thrusts threatened to capsize them, until Jesse settled for a slow, shallow grind that would get them there almost as quickly as a good hard fuck would. Hanzo’s claws sunk into Jesse’s thighs as they rocked against one another, the scent of blood in the water urging a low, desperate growl from his throat. 

Jesse’s cock drooled liberally, in spite of the wounds on his legs, his hirsute body undulating over Hanzo as he pleasured himself on the slick, strangely shaped prick inside him. “Fuck, sugar, feel so good in me,” he gasped, head tipped back and eyes slitted. Moonlight spilled down over them, turning the scene into shades of shadow and silver. “Wish I could have you with me like this for always.” 

Hanzo moaned desperately, be it at the physical sensations or the words, Jesse wasn’t sure, but he did know when a man was close to orgasm, and his beautiful monster was getting close. Doubling down on his efforts, Jesse squeezed and rocked over him, fully expecting to work them both into an orgasm that had them whimpering rather than shouting, when he felt something uniquely distinct. 

Hanzo’s cock, drawing almost fully out of him before abruptly thrusting in, a deep, full stroke that shocked a warble out of Jesse. His eyes flew wide open and he stared down at his lover in shock, catching only a glimpse of that wicked sharp-toothed smile before it happened again, and again. He didn’t understand how it was happening, but however he was doing it, Jesse found himself hurtling headlong into his orgasm as Hanzo’s cock pistoned in and out of his hole, slick and brutal and perfect. 

Jesse tensed and shuddered, hollering to the high heavens as his cock spewed veritable streamers of cum over Hanzo’s belly and chest. Each thrust of Hanzo’s prick into his body urged another spurt out of him, shouts fading into overstimulated moans. A handful more thrusts and then Hanzo stilled as well, buried deep inside and seeding Jesse well and truly. Jesse felt over-full, eyelids fluttering as he drifted in an overwhelmed haze of sex-drunk and satiation. 

At some point Jesse slumped over to rest along Hanzo’s chest, nuzzling his throat and whining when Hanzo’s cock slipped free of his well-used hole. “Rest, Jesse,” Hanzo purred, a taloned hand stroking gently up and down his spine. “You are safe here.”

***

True to his word, Jesse awoke whole and happy, clearly cleaned up from their romp in the river, though they lounged in lush grass along the riverbank. “How long was I out?” Jesse rumbled, rubbing a hand over his face and realizing that his hair was still damp. 

“Perhaps an hour. Not longer.” 

“Hmm. You think ya trust me now, sugar?” Jesse asked, leaning in to kiss over a purpled mark that he’d evidently bitten into porcelain skin earlier, though he didn’t have much memory of doing so. 

Hanzo snorted, claws combing through Jesse’s chest hair. “I suppose I must.” They both hesitated then, the lazy comfort they’d been taking in each other fading as Hanzo sat up. “You… will do what you came to do then?” He sounded, sad… resigned… and Jesse hated it. 

“Now wait just a darn minute, sweetpea,” Jesse said tartly, sitting up and wrapping arms around Hanzo’s waist, stroking along his scales as he tugged him close once more. “I ain’t gonna do nothin without you agreeing to it, ok?” He couldn’t read the look in Hanzo’s white eyes, but he could see the faint tick of his lips upwards.

“Understood. What are your intentions for… releasing me?” 

Jesse sighed, brushing a kiss over the swell of Hanzo’s shoulder. “Well, based on my research, the way to free a Rusalka is to avenge them by killing their murderer…” 

“Which is me,” Hanzo said dryly. “I cannot wait to see how this plays out.” 

Jesse flicked Hanzo lightly between the eyes. “Smartass. Yeah, you killed yourself. But that means you also gotta forgive yourself for what you did. Not just for committing suicide, but for why you felt you had to.” 

It was clear as day the way Hanzo withdrew into himself at that, a frown furrowing his brow and marring his pretty lips. “Impossible. I gravely wounded my brother in an attempt to kill him. I brought shame on myself and my family with my actions… death is the only appropriate penance.” 

Jesse didn’t quite think that was true, but now obviously wasn’t the time to argue the point. “Be that as it may, it’s one of the few ways to break the curse. The other…” he sighed, releasing Hanzo long enough to look over his prosthetic arm, the magic keeping it functional glowing a faint orange at the seams. 

“The other?” Hanzo prompted, taking the hand Jesse was staring at, rubbing a thumb over the metal. 

“The other is to bind your soul to an enchanted item and kill your body,” Jesse offered flatly. Hanzo traced the seams of his knuckles and grazed a thumb over the inscribed runes. “You could bind me to you,” Hanzo said simply. Jesse nodded. “Your soul is still trapped here, but you wouldn’t have to eat people no more. You could be a part of me.” 

Hanzo went silent as he considered the options. Jesse hardly thought he’d come to a conclusion tonight, but a few moments later Hanzo nodded and took his other hand as well. “I consent to this solution,” he said, bowing his head low. 

Jesse fought the urge to yank his hands away from Hanzo, looking distressed. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You’d be trapped with me! That ain’t freedom that’s some kinda… some kinda slavery!” 

Hanzo’s mouth quirked, his body trembling as he fought back laughter that Jesse tried his damndest to not take offense at. Tamping down his mirth, Hanzo looked up at him, shaking his head in a manner that Jesse figured might be a touch fond. 

“For all your insight, you truly are a fool. My choice is bound in the body of a monster, tormented by unending hunger, or bound to you, a man who has seen nothing but good in me even though he hunted me. It is an easy choice. I choose you.” 

Jesse probably looked like a fish out of water, jaw working as he gaped at how simply Hanzo had distilled the problem. He hadn’t really thought that Hanzo would go for this option, but it was a mite better than killing both the body and the soul… and that meant that Hanzo wasn’t completely beyond redemption. Maybe one day he could forgive himself and be truly free of any earthly shackles. 

“I… shit, you’re right. I’m an idiot,” Jesse confessed. “Can we just… can we spend the rest of the night together before we uh… do it?” He wanted to be ashamed of the embarrassed blush that crept up his cheeks, but Hanzo’s gentle laugh eased his awkwardness.

“I’m very glad you asked. It will be a pity that tonight is our only night… we should make the most of it.”

***

With dawn rising pink and gold over the forest and glimmering on the water, Jesse took one final, lingering look at his lover as he slept, the river lapping at Hanzo’s reptilian toes. He was nowhere near sated after one night, but once Hanzo had confessed that the hunger still roiled beneath him, he knew that one night was all they could risk. 

Reaching up to brush knuckles over Hanzo’s cheekbone, the creature slitted eyes open, gazing at him with as much fondness as an undead river monster could manage. Hell, it was a damned fair amount for most humans too, Jesse mused. “Morning, angel. Ready to ditch your ride for an uglier one?” Jesse joked to ease the tension in his guts. Hanzo snorted, catching Jesse’s hand and placing a kiss against the palm. 

“Please, credit my taste. You are a fine specimen and I look forward to spending it as a part of you.” 

Jesse’s smile wavered. “You sure about this, honey? We don’t gotta do it if you’re having second thoughts.” 

Hanzo switched from kissing to placing a sharp bite on Jesse’s hand, teeth sinking in as he growled and licked at the blood welling up. “Do not insult me. Get on with it before I decide to have you for breakfast.” 

Jesse pulled his wounded hand to his chest, waggling his eyebrows lasciviously. “You can have me for breakfast any day, sweetcheeks.” He barely ducked the rock Hanzo flicked at his forehead before admitting surrender. “Fine, fine, you win. Stubborn bastard.” His words were nothing but fond though, as he cupped his palm to let the blood pool in his hand and got up, making his way to his pile of clothes he’d left on the riverbank. He dug Peacekeeper out of his holster before returning to Hanzo’s side and kneeling down.

“You wanna put your sigil on my arm for me, babe?” Jesse said, offering Hanzo his blood-filled palm. Shifting into seiza, Hanzo dipped a fingertip in the blood and took Jesse’s prosthetic, carefully painting the kanji of his name on the silver finish. When he was done, he licked his finger clean and waited, eyes closed for Jesse to perform the soul-binding ritual. 

Jesse’s arm lit up with a reddish orange glow, the blood seeping into the enchanted metal and staining it permanently with Hanzo’s name. He chanted a language that was nothing human, and held his metal hand to Hanzo’s chest, covering the space where his heart should have been beating, fingertips pressing gently into muscle. 

Focusing with his Sight, Jesse cast the spell he’d found in his research and watched as the blood-stained soul of Hanzo reached back out for him. Once they connected, he picked up the pistol with his off-hand and leveled the barrel at Hanzo’s forehead. His gut cramped unpleasantly until he realized that he could feel Hanzo’s warmth gathering in the palm of his hand. 

Warmth he’d lacked in his time as a Rusalka. 

Jesse prayed to any god that would listen, and pulled the trigger. 

There was a recoil and _snap_ as Hanzo’s soul disconnected from his body, and settled into Jesse’s arm. His body fell to the earth with a wet splash, dissolving into water and strands of seaweed. Peacekeeper followed, hitting the wet earth with a thud as Jesse rocked back onto his ass and waited for some sign that Hanzo was still there. Still intact, and surviving the death of a second body. 

Jesse’s arm warmed to the touch, tingled, and he felt a deep, profound sense of consideration before he heard a familiar voice inside his head. 

_“This is not entirely unpleasant. I haven’t been warm in a long time, and I haven’t felt full in a long time, but right now... I feel both.” _

“Oh, thank fuck,” Jesse gasped, heedless of the tears streaming down his cheeks. Without his will driving it, the prosthetic rose and wiped at the tears far more tenderly than he’d ever treated himself. He looked at the dampness on the metal and almost felt Hanzo looking at his hand through his own eyes. 

_“Yes, this will be a satisfactory arrangement.”_ Hanzo asserted confidently. Jesse laughed breathlessly, still a little unnerved by not being alone in his own body anymore. “Whatever you say, pumpkin. You ready to head home?” 

There was another moment of profound consideration, and then a swelling of satisfaction that Jesse wasn’t sure was his or Hanzo’s. 

_“Yes. Take us home, Jesse.”_


End file.
